Commonwealth Bank, Westpac apps to make ATMs cough up money

Nate Cochrane

The Commonwealth Bank took another digital step on Thursday launching a new way to withdraw money from ATMs: with a smartphone.

The bank’s 2.3 million app customers will be able to withdraw up to $200 once a day from any of 3000 ATMs without resorting to their plastic bank cards. Customers can also authorise someone to withdraw cash on their behalf by sending them a text message and PIN.

Using the app on an Apple iOS or Android device, customers can request the amount they wish to withdraw, then input two number codes - one from the app and one received in a text message - to withdraw money. It will be rolled out in May.

Michael Harte, the bank's chief information officer, said the idea for cardless withdrawals grew from an internal start-up competition in which the bank spent $10,000 to $100,000 on staff projects to rapidly build business cases.

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Another new feature on the bank's customer app will soon allow account holders to lock and limit their credit cards, reducing the number of calls to its contact centre. For instance, a card may be unlocked for an overseas trip for a few weeks or to allow online shopping.

The tech-race is such in the banking market, that Westpac rushed its own cardless-ATM announcement on Wednesday.

It will allow its customers to withdraw money from ATMs with a smartphone app from September.

From July, however, customers will be able make up to three withdraws up to the value of $1000 a day, with a $2000 limit per week, without the app or card by ringing the bank’s call centre to obtain a unique six-digit cash code to use at ATMs, a spokeswoman told Fairfax Media.

The code will be valid for a short period after the phone call, to provide customers "with an added layer of security".

Harte said the cashless society was still far distant, with 500,000 of the CommBank's customer still using passbooks. "A lot of people would love to see a cashless society - and a lot of people never want to see that - and we have to serve all those customers’ requirements," he said.

Angus Sullivan, CommBank's executive general manager of cards and payments, said using a smartphone to withdraw cash may improve transaction security .

"The opportunity for mobile payments and cardless cash is you remove the opportunity for the card to be read."

Several high-profile cases of card skimming have recently been before the courts with police warning of organised crime. The Australian Payments Clearing Association found card skimming at ATMs rose by 4 per cent to $24.3 million last year even while the total counterfeit and skimming fraud of Australian cards dropped by 29 per cent to $37.8 million.

But Harte said that while skimming and fraud was "highly inconvenient", its overall impact was relatively insignificant with customers indemnified in case of loss.

He said the new withdrawal service was highly competitive and a nod to staff's ability to innovate and build applications using the agile software development method.

"They can design things and create at very high speed, very low cost, very low risk, try them out and get them built in an agile manner and scale them.

"This is an extraordinary competitive capability."

The bank also released an app for micro and small businesses still relying on paper ledgers and shoeboxes of receipts. The app running on the bank's Pi platform is an entry-level financials package allowing small business customers to write estimates and turn them intoinvoices on the spot. It has basic analytics including daily transactions to help business owners track cash flow, and includes BPay and electronics funds transfer as standard payment methods.

It will appeal to the about two-thirds of one-person businesses with smartphones as well as those who either have basic accounting needs or have yet to computerise. Harte said the bank was open to collaborating with accounting software makers such as Xero and MYOB, which dominated the small-business market.

The app works with the bank's new mobile payments terminal, Emmy, for micro-businesses with few transactions. It costs $30 a month and 1.5 per cent commission for amounts over $1500. Businesses including tradespeople and personal trainers can accept card payments such as tap and go, and chip and PIN code.

Emmy enters a crowded ring of competitors that include Westpac, PayPal, and MYOB. However the push for secure forms of payment may prove an obstacle for US disrupter, Square, which uses the older magnetic stripe technology.

19 comments

Other banks have done this for years e.g. NatWest and RBS in the UK.. not sure why CBA had to throw 10-100K at their teams to plagiarise the idea!

By the way NatWest withdrew the service because of fraud..

Commenter

Bazza

Location

Bazzaville

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 3:08PM

10k-100k to deploy a system, that's cheap! In fact i think it's exactly what you say buying their technology license.

It seems you're afraid of development!

Commenter

Gerson

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 5:17PM

um, why bother, when you can just use your card.

Seriously, is that what they're doing with our hard earned dollars?

An "internal start-up competition in which the bank spent $10,000 to $100,000 on staff projects to rapidly build business cases."

So they can squeeze more money out of us? Seriously?

They probably think, oh, it's an app, they love their iphone more than life itself..... it'll go VIRAL, yes !!

That's how stupid they think we are. That we'll go to the trouble of texting instead of just using the stoopid card.

We'll stand in the rain and the wind, stuffing around with our phones, causing a que behind us ... instead of just pulling out our card.

Commenter

sarajane

Location

melbourne

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 6:16PM

Good idea but perhaps Westpac should do something about there absolutely atrocious internet banking before investing any more in this market. Every time you ask them about it they say it be be released in a few months. Thats been for the last year.

Commenter

Boonty

Location

Syndey

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 3:37PM

This bank leads the way in technology, service and speed!

Commenter

The Other Guy1

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 3:47PM

Nice try, CBA employee.

Commenter

The First Guy2

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 5:41PM

Which bank?

Commenter

The_Outsider

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 5:45PM

Just another way for strangers to get access to your account while the bank helps itself to yet another bank fee. Keep telling yourself they have the customers' interests at heart.... and keep eating grass.

Commenter

Weary

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 4:04PM

Oh joy. Yet another way for cyber crims to steal our money.

Commenter

Roger

Location

Dark Side of the Moon

Date and time

April 30, 2014, 4:20PM

Just moved all our banking including home loans, credit cards and savings accounts from the so called bank that offers "Fairer Banking" to CBA. Now saving an average of $300 per month on the home loan alone and can't be happier. Well done CBA!

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